Biology shows stress effects one's morality

Posted: Friday, June 11, 2010

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Our religious teachings inspire us to higher moral awareness for all our behavior.

Modern biology of the mind (neurobiology) shows that the major religions have been right: people and society can evolve higher moral awareness and, under stress, people and society regress to lesser moral awareness.

Morality is taking into consideration the wider consequences and longer-term results of our actions. To love is to consciously widen awareness of and responsibility for our affect on others. Under stress, we tend to consider only immediate results for ourselves or our small group.

Neurobiology has shown that the prefrontal cortex of the human brain functions to increase awareness of long-term consequences, of other people and the whole creation. This same biology has shown that when we are under stress, the prefrontal cortex tends to shut down and the dominant mental activity is in the limbic system where we perceive threat and react to it.

So, under stress, we tend to think of ourselves rather than all God's people, and we tend to seek immediate relief of threat rather than to live courageously in the creation God so generously has given.

To be truly moral people, we have to do far more than learn moral rules.

We have to calm our anxious minds and consciously foster awareness of the wider world.

A ritual of prayer for all of God's people and creation is one way to foster this awareness. Another way is to encounter people who are different and get to know them as people. Biology shows that people who do this thicken the connective tissues to the prefrontal cortex, and religious history shows that people who do this evolve into more responsible moral beings.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a horrible reminder of consequences.

We as a nation did not have the precautions and oversight in place to prevent this, and the various companies involved in the drilling did not take respectful safeguards. As a democratic society, we all share in some way for this disaster, and we all bear the consequences. This is no small matter and needs the attention of religious people.

We know regression to a lesser moral awareness is taking place when we start blaming others. Blaming is a reaction to fear of punishment for being wrong. But God does not punish. God lets us bear natural consequences. And the consequences only intensify when we focus on blaming others. God calls us to confession so awareness can foster change.

Political and religious leaders who blame others are exposing the level of their own moral development. Rather than blame these leaders, we need to use them as mirrors of our own lives. Notice when we blame others in our own struggles in family, work and community life. Notice when we blame others for being lazy, selfish or unpatriotic rather than get to know and understand them. The courage to take responsibility is mature love, and it starts not with them, but with us.

• The Rev. Thomas G. Camp is a marriage and family therapist, spiritual director and consultant with Samaritan Counseling Center of Northeast Georgia in Athens, www.samaritannega.org.